Memorial Museum and Consumer Society: Regarding “Implosion” in the “Most Diabolical” Space

Jimin Cha

doi:10.22901/trans.2021.14.1.117

This research investigates memorial museums in the context of consumer society. Unlike the existing studies, which focus mainly on the exhibition, this research differentiates itself from the current studies by inviting society to its examination. Based on Jean Baudrillard’s critical views on image and consumer society, this study tackles memorial museums in a new light largely in three aspects. First, this study inspects why the phenomenon of “indistinguishability” can be “most diabolical.” Second, this research examines how the image in memorial museum’s exhibition replaces the past with “artificial memory” by causing visitors to become “totally indifferent” to the message the museum is trying to convey. Third, based on Baudrillard’s theory on the consumer society, this research locates memorial museums in consumer society to explore how museums are consumed happily by visitors, who enter the museum from where consumption is prevalent. Thus, this research proposes a new perspective for understanding museums by connecting the museums to consumer society, which is an aspect that has been overlooked so far in the discussion of memorial museums. For the discussion, cases of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. and Museum of Memory and Human Rights in Santiago, Chile will be introduced.

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* 2021년 이후 발행 논문의 참고문헌은 현재 구축 중입니다.

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